Science and Health
with Key to The Scriptures
by Mary Baker Eddy
Chapter XIV - Recapitulation

 

Truth destroys falsity
475:1
darkness, and the Scripture declares that there is "no
night there." To Truth there is no error, – all is Truth.
To infinite Spirit there is no matter, – all is Spirit, divine
Principle and its idea.
Fleshly factors unreal
475:5
Question. – What is man?
Answer. – Man is not matter; he is not made up of
brain, blood, bones, and other material elements. The
Scriptures inform us that man is made in
the image and likeness of God. Matter is
not that likeness. The likeness of Spirit cannot be so
unlike Spirit. Man is spiritual and perfect; and be-
cause he is spiritual and perfect, he must be so under-
stood in Christian Science. Man is idea, the image, of
Love; he is not physique. He is the compound idea of
God, including all right ideas; the generic term for
all that reflects God's image and likeness; the conscious
identity of being as found in Science, in which man is
the reflection of God, or Mind, and therefore is eternal;
that which has no separate mind from God; that which
has not a single quality underived from Deity; that which
possesses no life, intelligence, nor creative power of his
own, but reflects spiritually all that belongs to his Maker.
475:23
And God said: "Let us make man in our image, after
our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish
of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle,
and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that
creepeth upon the earth."
Man unfallen
475:28
Man is incapable of sin, sickness, and death. The
real man cannot depart from holiness, nor
can God, by whom man is evolved, engender
the capacity or freedom to sin. A mortal sinner is not
476:1
God's man. Mortals are the counterfeits of immortals.
They are the children of the wicked one, or the one evil,
which declares that man begins in dust or as a material
embryo. In divine Science, God and the real man are
inseparable as divine Principle and idea.
Mortals are not immortals
476:6
Error, urged to its final limits, is self-destroyed.
Error will cease to claim that soul is in body, that life
and intelligence are in matter, and that
this matter is man. God is the Principle of
man, and man is the idea of God. Hence man is not
mortal nor material. Mortals will disappear, and im-
mortals, or the children of God, will appear as the only
and eternal verities of man. Mortals are not fallen chil-
dren of God. They never had a perfect state of being,
which may subsequently be regained. They were, from
the beginning of mortal history, "conceived in sin and
brought forth in iniquity." Mortality is finally swallowed
up in immortality. Sin, sickness, and death must dis-
appear to give place to the facts which belong to immortal
man.
Imperishable identity
476:21
Learn this, O mortal, and earnestly seek the spiritual
status of man, which is outside of all material selfhood.
Remember that the Scriptures say of mortal
man: "As for man, his days are as grass: as
a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind
passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall
know it no more."
The kingdom within
476:28
When speaking of God's children, not the children of
men, Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is within you;"
that is, Truth and Love reign in the real
man, showing that man in God's image is
unfallen and eternal. Jesus beheld in Science the per-
477:1
fect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal
man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour
saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man
healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom
of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy.
Man is not a material habitation for Soul; he is himself
spiritual. Soul, being Spirit, is seen in nothing imperfect
nor material.
Material body never God's idea
477:9
Whatever is material is mortal. To the five corporeal
senses, man appears to be matter and mind united; but
Christian Science reveals man as the idea of
God, and declares the corporeal senses to be
mortal and erring illusions. Divine Science
shows it to be impossible that a material body, though
interwoven with matter's highest stratum, misnamed
mind, should be man, – the genuine and perfect man,
the immortal idea of being, indestructible and eternal.
Were it otherwise, man would be annihilated.
Reflection of Spirit
477:19
Question. – What are body and Soul?
Answer. – Identity is the reflection of Spirit, the re-
flection in multifarious forms of the living Principle,
Love. Soul is the substance, Life, and intelli-
gence of man, which is individualized, but not
in matter. Soul can never reflect anything inferior to
Spirit.
Man inseparable from Spirit
477:26
Man is the expression of Soul. The Indians caught
some glimpses of the underlying reality, when
they called a certain beautiful lake "the smile
of the Great Spirit." Separated from man,
who expresses Soul, Spirit would be a nonentity; man,
divorced from Spirit, would lose his entity. But there is,
478:1
there can be, no such division, for man is coexistent with
God.
A vacant domicile
478:3
What evidence of Soul or of immortality have you
within mortality? Even according to the teachings of
natural science, man has never beheld Spirit
or Soul leaving a body or entering it. What
basis is there for the theory of indwelling spirit, except
the claim of mortal belief? What would be thought of
the declaration that a house was inhabited, and by a cer-
tain class of persons, when no such persons were ever seen
to go into the house or to come out of it, nor were they
even visible through the windows? Who can see a soul
in the body?
Harmonious functions
478:14
Question. – Does brain think, and do nerves feel, and
is there intelligence in matter?
Answer. – No, not if God is true and mortal man a
liar. The assertion that there can be pain or pleasure
in matter is erroneous. That body is most
harmonious in which the discharge of the nat-
ural functions is least noticeable. How can intelligence
dwell in matter when matter is non-intelligent and
brain-lobes cannot think? Matter cannot perform the
functions of Mind. Error says, "I am man;" but this
belief is mortal and far from actual. From beginning
to end, whatever is mortal is composed of material hu-
man beliefs and of nothing else. That only is real which
reflects God. St. Paul said, "But when it pleased God,
who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me
by His grace, . . . I conferred not with flesh and blood."
Immortal birthright
478:30
Mortal man is really a self-contradictory phrase, for
man is not mortal, "neither indeed can be;" man is im-
479:1
mortal. If a child is the offspring of physical sense and
not of Soul, the child must have a material, not a spirit-
ual origin. With what truth, then, could the
Scriptural rejoicing be uttered by any mother,
"I have gotten a man from the Lord"? On the con-
trary, if aught comes from God, it cannot be mortal and
material; it must be immortal and spiritual.
Matter's supposed selfhood
479:8
Matter is neither self-existent nor a product of Spirit.
An image of mortal thought, reflected on the retina, is
all that the eye beholds. Matter cannot see,
feel, hear, taste, nor smell. It is not self‑
cognizant, – cannot feel itself, see itself, nor
understand itself. Take away so-called mortal mind,
which constitutes matter's supposed selfhood, and matter
can take no cognizance of matter. Does that which we
call dead ever see, hear, feel, or use any of the physical
senses?
Chaos and darkness
479:18
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and
darkness was upon the face of the deep."
(Genesis i. 1, 2.) In the vast forever, in the
Science and truth of being, the only facts are Spirit
and its innumerable creations. Darkness and chaos
are the imaginary opposites of light, understanding,
and eternal harmony, and they are the elements of
nothingness.
Spiritual reflection
479:27
We admit that black is not a color, because it reflects
no light. So evil should be denied identity or power,
because it has none of the divine hues. Paul
says: "For the invisible things of Him, from
the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being under-
stood by the things that are made." (Romans i. 20.)
480:1
When the substance of Spirit appears in Christian Sci-
ence, the nothingness of matter is recognized. Where
the spirit of God is, and there is no place where God is
not, evil becomes nothing, – the opposite of the some-
thing of Spirit. If there is no spiritual reflection, then
there remains only the darkness of vacuity and not a trace
of heavenly tints.
Harmony from Spirit
480:8
Nerves are an element of the belief that there is sensa-
tion in matter, whereas matter is devoid of sensation.
Consciousness, as well as action, is governed
by Mind, – is in God, the origin and gov-
ernor of all that Science reveals. Material sense has
its realm apart from Science in the unreal. Harmonious
action proceeds from Spirit, God. inharmony has no
Principle; its action is erroneous and presupposes man
to be in matter. Inharmony would make matter the
cause as well as the effect of intelligence, or Soul, thus
attempting to separate Mind from God.
Evil non-existent
480:19
Man is not God, and God is not man. Again, God,
or good, never made man capable of sin. It is the oppo-
site of good – that is, evil – which seems to
make men capable of wrong-doing. Hence,
evil is but an illusion, and it has no real basis. Evil is a
false belief. God is not its author. The supposititious
parent of evil is a lie.
Vapor and nothingness
480:26
The Bible declares: "All things were made by Him
[the divine Word]; and without Him was not anything,
made that was made." This is the eternal
verity of divine Science. If sin, sickness, and
death were understood as nothingness, they would dis-
appear. As vapor melts before the sun, so evil would
vanish before the reality of good. One must hide the
481:1
other. How important, then, to choose good as the
reality! Man is tributary to God, Spirit, and to nothing
else. God's being is infinity, freedom, harmony, and
boundless bliss. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is,
there is liberty." Like the archpriests of yore, man is
free "to enter into the holiest," – the realm of God.
The fruit forbidden
481:7
Material sense never helps mortals to understand
Spirit, God. Through spiritual sense only, man com-
prehends and loves Deity. The various con-
tradictions of the Science of Mind by the ma-
terial senses do not change the unseen Truth, which re-
mains forever intact. The forbidden fruit of knowledge,
against which wisdom warns man, is the testimony of
error, declaring existence to be at the mercy of death,
and good and evil to be capable of commingling. This
is the significance of the Scripture concerning this "tree
of the knowledge of good and evil," – this growth of
material belief, of which it is said: "In the day that thou
eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Human hypotheses
first assume the reality of sickness, sin, and death, and
then assume the necessity of these evils because of their
admitted actuality. These human verdicts are the pro-
curers of all discord.
Sense and pure Soul
481:24
If Soul sins, it must be mortal. Sin has the elements
of self-destruction. It cannot sustain itself. If sin is
supported, God must uphold it, and this is
impossible, since Truth cannot support error.
Soul is the divine Principle of man and never sins, –
hence the immortality of Soul. In Science we learn that
it is material sense, not Soul, which sins; and it will be
found that it is the sense of sin which is lost, and not a
sinful soul. When reading the Scriptures, the substitu-
482:1
tion of the word sense for soul gives the exact meaning in
a majority of cases.
Soul defined
482:3
Human thought has adulterated the meaning of the
word soul through the hypothesis that soul is both an evil
and a good intelligence, resident in matter.
The proper use of the word soul can always
be gained by substituting the word God, where the deific
meaning is required. In other cases, use the word sense,
and you will have the scientific signification. As used
in Christian Science, Soul is properly the synonym of
Spirit, or God; but out of Science, soul is identical with
sense, with material sensation.
Sonship of Jesus
482:13
Question. – Is it important to understand these ex-
planations in order to heal the sick?
Answer. – It is, since Christ is "the way" and the
truth casting out all error. Jesus called himself "the
Son of man," but not the son of Joseph. As
woman is but a species of the genera, he was
literally the Son of Man. Jesus was the highest human
concept of the perfect man. He was inseparable from
Christ, the Messiah, – the divine idea of God outside
the flesh. This enabled Jesus to demonstrate his con-
trol over matter. Angels announced to the Wisemen of
old this dual appearing, and angels whisper it, through
faith, to the hungering heart in every age.
Sickness erroneous
482:26
Sickness is part of the error which Truth casts out.
Error will not expel error. Christian Science is the law
of Truth, which heals the sick, on the basis
of the one Mind or God. It can heal in no
other way, since the human, mortal mind so-called is not
a healer, but causes the belief in disease.
True healing transcendent
483:1
Then comes the question, how do drugs, hygiene, and
animal magnetism heal? It may be affirmed that they
do not heal, but only relieve suffering tempo-
rarily, exchanging one disease for another.
We classify disease as error, which nothing but Truth or
Mind can heal, and this Mind must be divine, not human.
Mind transcends all other power, and will ultimately su-
persede all other means in healing. In order to heal by
Science, you must not be ignorant of the moral and spir-
itual demands of Science nor disobey them. Moral igno-
rance or sin affects your demonstration, and hinders its
approach to the standard in Christian Science.
Terms adopted by the author
483:13
After the author's sacred discovery, she affixed the
name "Science" to Christianity, the name "error" to
corporeal sense, and the name "substance" to
Mind. Science has called the world to battle
over this issue and its demonstration, which
heals the sick, destroys error, and reveals the universal
harmony. To those natural Christian Scientists, the an-
cient worthies, and to Christ Jesus, God certainly revealed
the spirit of Christian Science, if not the absolute letter.
Science the way
483:22
Because the Science of Mind seems to bring into dis-
honor the ordinary scientific schools, which wrestle with
material observations alone, this Science has
met with opposition; but if any system honors
God, it ought to receive aid, not opposition, from all think-
ing persons. And Christian Science does honor God as
no other theory honors Him, and it does this in the way
of His appointing, by doing many wonderful works
through the divine name and nature. One must fulfil
one's mission without timidity or dissimulation, for to be
well done, the work must be done unselfishly. Christianity
484:1
will never be based on a divine Principle and so found to
be unerring, until its absolute Science is reached. When
this is accomplished, neither pride, prejudice, bigotry,
nor envy can wash away its foundation, for it is built upon
the rock, Christ.
Mindless methods
484:6
Question. – Does Christian Science, or metaphysical
healing, include medication, material hygiene, mesmer-
ism, hypnotism, theosophy, or spiritualism?
Answer. – Not one of them is included in it. In di-
vine Science, the supposed laws of matter yield to the
law of Mind. What are termed natural
science and material laws are the objective
states of mortal mind. The physical universe expresses
the conscious and unconscious thoughts of mortals.
Physical force and mortal mind are one. Drugs and
hygiene oppose the supremacy of the divine Mind.
Drugs and inert matter are unconscious, mindless. Cer-
tain results, supposed to proceed from drugs, are really
caused by the faith in them which the false human con-
sciousness is educated to feel.
Animal magnetism error
484:21
Mesmerism is mortal, material illusion. Animal mag-
netism is the voluntary or involuntary action of error
in all its forms; it is the human antipode
of divine Science. Science must triumph
over material sense, and Truth over error, thus putting
an end to the hypotheses involved in all false theories
and practices.
Error only ephemeral
484:28
Question. – Is materiality the concomitant of spirit-
uality, and is material sense a necessary preliminary to
the understanding and expression of Spirit?
485:1
Answer. – If error is necessary to define or to reveal
Truth, the answer is yes; but not otherwise. Material
sense is an absurd phrase, for matter has no
sensation. Science declares that Mind, not
matter, sees, hears, feels, speaks. Whatever contradicts
this statement is the false sense, which ever betrays
mortals into sickness, sin, and death. If the unimpor-
tant and evil appear, only soon to disappear because
of their uselessness or their iniquity, then these ephem-
eral views of error ought to be obliterated by Truth.
Why malign Christian Science for instructing mortals how
to make sin, disease, and death appear more and more
unreal?
Scientific translations
485:14
Emerge gently from matter into Spirit. Think not
to thwart the spiritual ultimate of all things, but come
naturally into Spirit through better health and
morals and as the result of spiritual growth.
Not death, but the understanding of Life, makes man im-
mortal. The belief that life can be in matter or soul in
body, and that man springs from dust or from an egg,
is the result of the mortal error which Christ, or Truth,
destroys by fulfilling the spiritual law of being, in which
man is perfect, even as the "Father which is in heaven
is perfect." If thought yields its dominion to other
powers, it cannot outline on the body its own beautiful
images, but it effaces them and delineates foreign agents,
called disease and sin.
Material beliefs
485:28
The heathen gods of mythology controlled war and
agriculture as much as nerves control sensation or
muscles measure strength. To say that
strength is in matter, is like saying that the
power is in the lever. The notion of any life or intelli-
486:1
gence in matter is without foundation in fact, and you
can have no faith in falsehood when you have learned
falsehood's true nature.
Sense versus Soul
486:4
Suppose one accident happens to the eye, another to
the ear, and so on, until every corporeal sense is quenched.
What is man's remedy? To die, that he may
regain these senses? Even then he must gain
spiritual understanding and spiritual sense in order to
possess immortal consciousness. Earth's preparatory
school must be improved to the utmost. In reality man
never dies. The belief that he dies will not establish his
scientific harmony. Death is not the result of Truth but
of error, and one error will not correct another.
Death an error
486:14
Jesus proved by the prints of the nails, that his body
was the same immediately after death as before. If death
restores sight, sound, and strength to man,
then death is not an enemy but a better friend
than Life. Alas for the blindness of belief, which makes
harmony conditional upon death and matter, and yet
supposes Mind unable to produce harmony! So long
as this error of belief remains, mortals will continue mor-
tal in belief and subject to chance and change.
Permanent sensibility
486:23
Sight, hearing, all the spiritual senses of man, are
eternal. They cannot be lost. Their reality and immor-
tality are in Spirit and understanding, not in
matter, – hence their permanence. If this
were not so, man would be speedily annihilated. If the
five corporeal senses were the medium through which
to understand God, then palsy, blindness, and deafness
would place man in a terrible situation, where he would
be like those "having no hope, and without God in the
world;" but as a matter of fact, these calamities often
487:1
drive mortals to seek and to find a higher sense of happi-
ness and existence.
Exercise of Mind-faculties
487:3
Life is deathless. Life is the origin and ultimate of
man, never attainable through death, but gained by walk-
ing in the pathway of Truth both before and
after that which is called death. There is more
Christianity in seeing and hearing spiritually
than materially. There is more Science in the perpetual
exercise of the Mind-faculties than in their loss. Lost
they cannot be, while Mind remains. The apprehension
of this gave sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf cen-
turies ago, and it will repeat the wonder.
Understanding versus belief
487:13
Question. – You speak of belief. Who or what is it
that believes?
Answer. – Spirit is all-knowing; this precludes the
need of believing. Matter cannot believe, and Mind
understands. The body cannot believe. The
believer and belief are one and are mortal.
Christian evidence is founded on Science or
demonstrable Truth, flowing from immortal Mind, and
there is in reality no such thing as mortal mind. Mere
belief is blindness without Principle from which to ex-
plain the reason of its hope. The belief that life is sen-
tient and intelligent matter is erroneous.
487:25
The Apostle James said, "Show me thy faith without
thy works, and I will show thee my faith by my works."
The understanding that Life is God, Spirit, lengthens
our days by strengthening our trust in the deathless
reality of Life, its almightiness and immortality.
Confirmation by healing
487:30
This faith relies upon an understood Principle. This
Principle makes whole the diseased, and brings out the
488:1
enduring and harmonious phases of things. The result
of our teachings is their sufficient confirmation. When,
on the strength of these instructions, you are
able to banish a severe malady, the cure shows
that you understand this teaching, and therefore you re-
ceive the blessing of Truth.
Belief and firm trust
488:7
The Hebrew and Greek words often translated belief
differ somewhat in meaning from that conveyed by the
English verb believe; they have more the sig-
nificance of faith, understanding, trust, con-
stancy, firmness. Hence the Scriptures often appear in
our common version to approve and endorse belief, when
they mean to enforce the necessity of understanding.
All faculties from Mind
488:14
Question. – Do the five corporeal senses constitute
man?
Answer. – Christian Science sustains with immortal
proof the impossibility of any material sense, and defines
these so-called senses as mortal beliefs, the
testimony of which cannot be true either of
man or of his Maker. The corporeal senses can take no
cognizance of spiritual reality and immortality. Nerves
have no more sensation, apart from what belief be-
stows upon them, than the fibres of a plant. Mind alone
possesses all faculties, perception, and comprehension.
Therefore mental endowments are not at the mercy of
organization and decomposition, – otherwise the very
worms could unfashion man. If it were possible for the
real senses of man to be injured, Soul could reproduce
them in all their perfection; but they cannot be dis-
turbed nor destroyed, since they exist in immortal Mind,
not in matter.
Possibilities of Life
489:1
The less mind there is manifested in matter the better.
When the unthinking lobster loses its claw, the claw grows
again. If the Science of Life were understood,
it would be found that the senses of Mind are
never lost and that matter has no sensation. Then the
human limb would be replaced as readily as the lobster's
claw, – not with an artificial limb, but with the genuine
one. Any hypothesis which supposes life to be in matter
is an educated belief. In infancy this belief is not equal
to guiding the hand to the mouth; and as consciousness
develops, this belief goes out, – yields to the reality of
everlasting Life.
Decalogue disregarded
489:13
Corporeal sense defrauds and lies; it breaks all the
commands of the Mosaic Decalogue to meet its own de-
mands. How then can this sense be the God‑
given channel to man of divine blessings or
understanding? How can man, reflecting God, be de-
pendent on material means for knowing, hearing, seeing?
Who dares to say that the senses of man can be at one time
the medium for sinning against God, at another the me-
dium for obeying God? An affirmative reply would con-
tradict the Scripture, for the same fountain sendeth not
forth sweet waters and bitter.
Organic construction valueless
489:24
The corporeal senses are the only source of evil or
error. Christian Science shows them to be false, be-
cause matter has no sensation, and no organic
construction can give it hearing and sight nor
make it the medium of Mind. Outside the
material sense of things, all is harmony. A wrong sense
of God, man, and creation is non-sense, want of sense.
Mortal belief would have the material senses sometimes
good and sometimes bad. It assures mortals that there
490:1
is real pleasure in sin; but the grand truths of Christian
Science dispute this error.
Will-power an animal propensity
490:3
Will-power is but a product of belief, and this belief
commits depredations on harmony. Human will is an
animal propensity, not a faculty of Soul.
Hence it cannot govern man aright. Chris-
tian Science reveals Truth and Love as the
motive-powers of man. Will – blind, stubborn, and head-
long – cooperates with appetite and passion. From this
cooperation arises its evil. From this also comes its pow-
erlessness, since all power belongs to God, good.
Theories helpless
490:12
The Science of Mind needs to be understood. Until
it is understood, mortals are more or less deprived of
Truth. Human theories are helpless to make
man harmonious or immortal, since he is so
already, according to Christian Science. Our only need
is to know this and reduce to practice the real man's di-
vine Principle, Love
True nature and origin
490:19
"Quench not the Spirit. Despise not prophesyings."
Human belief – or knowledge gained from the so-called
material senses – would, by fair logic, anni-
hilate man along with the dissolving elements
of clay. The scientifically Christian explanations of the
nature and origin of man destroy all material sense with
immortal testimony. This immortal testimony ushers
in the spiritual sense of being, which can be obtained
in no other way.
Sleep an illusion
490:28
Sleep and mesmerism explain the mythical nature of
material sense. Sleep shows material sense as either
oblivion, nothingness, or an illusion or dream.
Under the mesmeric illusion of belief, a man
will think that he is freezing when he is warm, and that he
491:1
is swimming when he is on dry land. Needle-thrusts will
not hurt him. A delicious perfume will seem intolerable.
Animal magnetism thus uncovers material sense, and
shows it to be a belief without actual foundation or va-
lidity. Change the belief, and the sensation changes.
Destroy the belief, and the sensation disappears.
Man linked with Spirit
491:7
Material man is made up of involuntary and voluntary
error, of a negative right and a positive wrong, the latter
calling itself right. Man's spiritual individual-
ity is never wrong. It is the likeness of man's
Maker. Matter cannot connect mortals with the true
origin and facts of being, in which all must end. It is only
by acknowledging the supremacy of Spirit, which annuls
the claims of matter, that mortals can lay off mortality and
find the indissoluble spiritual link which establishes man
forever in the divine likeness, inseparable from his creator.
Material man as a dream
491:17
The belief that matter and mind are one, – that mat-
ter is awake at one time and asleep at another, some-
times presenting no appearance of mind, –
this belief culminates in another belief, that
man dies. Science reveals material man as never the real
being. The dream or belief goes on, whether our eyes are
closed or open. In sleep, memory and consciousness are
lost from the body, and they wander whither they will
apparently with their own separate embodiment. Per-
sonality is not the individuality of man. A wicked man
may have an attractive personality.
Spiritual existence the one fact
491:28
When we are awake, we dream of the pains and pleas-
ures of matter. Who will say, even though he
does not understand Christian Science, that
this dream – rather than the dreamer – may
not be mortal man? Who can rationally say otherwise,
< Previous  |  Next >

  from page    for    pages

  for    from    to  



View & Search Options